Is a weak government a good thing?

History shows that when governments are strong and unchecked, the needs of all may be subjugated to the perceived greater good of the state.

By any measure the government that Theresa May leads in the UK is a weak one, led by a Prime Minister beset by Brexit and power struggles within her own party.

But is this necessarily a bad thing? The UK has not had a government with a commanding majority since 2010. Yet despite this, so far, the UK has continued to mostly function, the biggest threat to its continued peace currently is the unusually hot weather. Most of the economic danger signs are the work of outside forces such as the rise of internet shopping or tariffs being imposed by foreign powers. Government since 2010 has had little effect on day to day business – apart from one obvious example - which we will come to.

Theresa May’s Conservatives preside over a government kept in power only through a deal with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). The deal favoured the interest and ambitions of that party. Yet despite warnings, it has not led to much interference from the DUP in policy making, mostly because daily business for this government is overwhelmingly about trying to find a way out of the Brexit maze – now more sinister and seemingly inescapable than that in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.

Weak, or coalition government, is the norm in many European countries, notably its most economically successful, and that which suffered most at the hands of a totalitarian government: Germany.

We remain however politically titillated by the “smack of firm government”, the idea being that governments are only effective if strong and driven by conviction politicians.

The phrase was first used in the Daily Telegraph, heading an op-ed by Donald McLachlan about the vacillations of Anthony Eden, a man who longed to be strong and decisive like his predecessor Sir Winston Churchill. He recalled writing it 10 years later in a piece in The Spectator.

“Eden seemed to be interesting himself in the wrong things and found it hard to delegate authority. Indeed, the starting point of the article was a public luncheon at which I had seen the Prime Minister promising most emphatically strong action about the economy and striking home the point with clenched right fist aimed at the open left palm. But, I noticed, 'the smack is seldom heard.' On Tuesday, January 3, the Telegraph's middle page carried the piece, with picture and headline most skilfully chosen by the Features Editor: 'Waiting for the smack of firm government'.

Of course, Eden’s desire for strong decisive action eventually led to the calamity of the Suez Crisis. And the phrase has been used and misused many times ever since.

Nothing seems more desirable than strong, hard governments that bulldoze their way through opposition to deliver their manifesto promises egged on by the “will of the people”, in a voting system that does not reward actual number of votes cast.

Many would argue that Theresa May similarly lacks the ability to deliver a firm smack, and certainly she seemed unwilling or unable to direct a particularly firm strike across Boris Johnson’s ample bottom.

But being decisive and looking in command are different from leading an effective government. A decisive person may well be in charge, but circumstances are such that his or her decisions are continually undermined by a lack of a majority. 

Imagine if Theresa May had won her expected landslide in 2017. She fits the model of a decisive and even ruthless leader. She cares little for what people think of her, is extremely stubborn and tends to think she is often right.

Mrs Thatcher was undoubtedly tough, strong and decisive. Yet even in her pomp this led to errors such as the needless brutality that accompanied the ending of the UK’s coal mining industry, a legacy still felt today in socio-economic terms in former mining towns.

She blundered into and through the Falklands War and was in the end lucky to emerge victorious from a brutal, nasty war.

Thatcher may have been fundamentally right about many economic matters, but her personality allied to two landslide election victories allowed her free rein to indulge the extremes of her chosen economic model, and to enable those with more yet more radical ideas to slip into government.

Where would we be if Theresa May had got that landslide she wished for? Would she have pushed hard for a hard Brexit or a softer version untrammelled by the need to care a jot about those who oppose her chosen path?

My view is that given her personality she may well have swung in with the hard Brexiters to get the job done as fast as possible.

We shall never know, but we may not be in the mess we currently find ourselves in where weak government could be argued to be very bad for the country.

We have the paradox of a small minority of MPs, the Brexit Ultras led by Jacob Rees-Mogg, who should not be powerful but are because of the weakness of the PM in terms of her majority.

So, she cannot get anything past without their approval. Is that democratic or is it taking advantage of the weakness of the PM to achieve a minority goal, and therefore not good for the country?

For the Ultras it is a way of achieving the mandate given to the government to leave the EU in the referendum, even if it means no deal.

For those on the remain side, it’s a dangerous path towards a calamitous exit from the EU with a the negative impact for jobs, investment and growth.

The result of the General Election in 2017 was in fact a great example of the electorate deciding that they did not want a strong government of any kind – neither Labour nor Conservative. A pox on both their houses, it said. We prefer weakness, we hold the cards and until one party or the other can be trusted with a majority – and strength – then we will keep the executive and the legislature weak. And so it did.

Which is a great result for democracy but very possibly a poor one for getting the country safely past the looming Brexit deadline.